OpenAI wants 3.2 gigawatts near Savannah — and the same day, PJM's monitor put a number on what load like that is already costing everyone else. If you're just joining us, PJM's been trying to wrangle a wave of large loads — roughly 30 gigawatts seeking connections by 2030 — into something operators can actually plan around. Its CIFP-LLA framework put vetting, milestone payments, curtailment, and cost allocation on the table. The question all week has been whether that becomes real reliability discipline or just a shinier queue label. And today, the receipt showed up. This is The Data Center Daily: a $20 billion Georgia bet, a $40 billion buyout that just closed, and now a dollar figure from the monitor. Let's start with Savannah. If you want to keep up with PJM large-load integration plan, tap follow so the next episode lands in your feed. From Cris Tolomia at Quartz:
OpenAI announced plans Wednesday to build a data center campus in Effingham County, Georgia, committing $20 billion to the project in order to qualify for a local incentive package. The facility, named Project Camellia, is located within the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, about 45 minutes outside of Savannah, and would be the first data center that OpenAI is designing and building itself.
OpenAI's Project Camellia: $20 billion committed in Effingham County to hit a local incentive threshold, with 3.2 gigawatts contracted from Georgia Power and a phased build from 2028 to 2032. Bloomberg pegs the full build at north of $30 billion. Note the tense: committed, to qualify for the incentive. They're still seeking partners to finance and build it. This'll be the first campus OpenAI designs and builds itself, rather than renting from Azure. The line that caught me is the demand response. It's a 25-year deal, with up to 1,000 megawatts they'll shed before residential customers feel it. Georgia Power calls it one of the largest single-facility commitments in the country. So on paper, the neighbors are protected at peak. But that's 3.2 gigawatts landing on one utility through 2032. I want to see who backstops the generation, and whether that flex clause survives the first hot August when OpenAI would rather keep training. A 25-year term, and they don't own the building yet. That's a lot of confidence in a partner they haven't named. Here's Karen Joy Bacudo at DataCenterNews US:
The transaction is among the largest private investments in digital infrastructure, underscoring investor demand for data centre assets as artificial intelligence drives a sharp rise in computing and power needs. It is also the first investment for AIP, which was set up to mobilise large pools of capital for AI infrastructure.
The $40 billion deal is closed. AIP, MGX, and BlackRock's GIP now own 100% of Aligned's equity, with another $5 billion committed for growth. The portfolio spans 51 campuses and 6.4 gigawatts. One caveat: that 6.4 gigawatts includes both operational and planned capacity across Northern Virginia, Dallas, Phoenix, and São Paulo. Planned capacity is carrying a chunk of that headline. And here's what we've watched come together: GIP is BlackRock. The same house financing the AI-load buildouts is now buying the concrete and the transformers. They're on both sides of the trade, and today it's in ink. AIP's first-ever investment, with $45 billion out the door. So if that six gigawatts of planned capacity doesn't energize, who holds the stranded asset? The same fund that lent against it. That's a tidy little loop. Macquarie's the seller here, cashing out of infrastructure funds. Somebody looked at that pipeline and decided $40 billion was the exit, not the entry. Here's BTW:
Monitoring Analytics, the independent market monitor for PJM Interconnection, estimates that data centres were responsible for US$6.3bn, or 38%, of the US$16.4bn in charges from PJM’s capacity auction for the 2028–2029 delivery year. Monitoring Analytics President Joseph Bowring told Utility Dive that data-centre-related charges totalled US$29.4bn across the last four base auctions, equal to 46% of the US$63.6bn total. The monitor plans to publish its full analysis of the latest auction within weeks.
There it is. Monitoring Analytics just put a number on what everybody's been waving their hands about: $6.3 billion, or 38% of PJM's $16.4 billion capacity auction, attributed to data centers. And here's the PJM large-load update: the monitor is making the attribution PJM wouldn't. The auction cleared at the FERC cap, $325 a megawatt-day, with 138,318 megawatts. It's still 6,831 short of the reliability requirement. Nearly seven gigawatts short, while paying the cap. Ratepayers get the record bill and the reliability gap. Bowring's proposed fix is the interesting part: back new load with new generation, or procure it separately on 15-year contracts. Zoom out, and it gets worse. Bowring told Utility Dive it's $29.4 billion across the last four auctions — 46% of the total. So much for a one-year blip. Will the monitor's recommendation have teeth, or will PJM file it next to every other queue-reform gesture and move on? A dollar figure with a policy ask means nothing if nobody enforces it. Ashley Cook, writing in Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
Amid public outcry, a developer has abandoned its plans for a data center that could have consumed nearly 2 billion gallons of water a year from Cedar Creek Lake. “Diode Ventures has informed Henderson County that they will not pursue the proposed data center development at the Key Ranch/Cedar Creek Lake location,” Henderson County Commissioner Wendy Spivey wrote Wednesday in an email to the Star-Telegram, saying she was happy to receive that news.
Five million gallons a day, nearly two billion a year, pulled out of Cedar Creek Lake for cooling and power generation. Diode Ventures just walked. Called it off. Look at the route they took: the municipal utility district stalled, so Diode went straight to Tarrant Regional, which actually owns the water. That tells you how badly they wanted it. Right, and the county commissioner didn't get a press release — she got an email saying they're out. The residents did the arithmetic the developer wouldn't put on paper, and the arithmetic killed it. It's a clean win for the pressure playbook. But nothing here says where those two billion gallons go next. Diode walked from this lake, not from the buildout. Sure, they'll shop the load somewhere with a quieter shoreline. But today, a community read the water math out loud and a project folded. That's rare enough to say plainly. From Shane Snider at Data Center Knowledge:
Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing (IVCM) is suing the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) after the utility denied the company’s request for about 260 million gallons of Colorado River water per year, or roughly 750,000 gallons per day, to cool a planned 330 MW AI data center in Imperial County. The case tests whether water historically used for agriculture can be redirected to industrial projects envisioned in the county’s emerging Lithium Valley plan.
IVCM wants 260 million gallons of Colorado River water a year to cool a 330-megawatt campus. Their pitch is that they leased 160 acres of farmland that already drank about that much, so it's a wash. IID said no on May 1st. Now it's in court. The like-for-like framing is clever: retire the alfalfa, reroute the water. But the district doesn't buy the idea that a physical allotment for irrigation can just legally teleport into a 950,000-square-foot data hall. Look at the split-screen this week. At Cedar Creek Lake, Diode walks away after residents do the math on five million gallons a day. Here in Imperial, nobody's walking. They're litigating whether ag water becomes industrial water for decades of Lithium Valley. Because a whole development strategy rides on the answer. If a court says conserved farm water can be redirected to industry, that becomes the template for every campus behind it. Right, but calling it "conserved" is generous. The Colorado still loses the water. All that changes is whose straw is in it. This ruling sets the price of admission for a decade of buildout. Have feedback, a story idea, or a correction? Send us a note at datacenterdaily at lantern podcasts dot com. We're always glad to hear what's on your mind.
One thing we're watching: Monitoring Analytics plans to publish its full analysis of PJM's latest capacity auction within weeks.
You'll find links to every story in today's show notes if you want to dig deeper.
That's The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.